


Fylgja

by thudworm



Series: Tony Stark Bingo 2019 [18]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Angels & Demons, Canon-Typical Violence, Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Fylgja, Hydra (Marvel), M/M, Red Room (Marvel), The Avengers (2012) - Freeform, The Tesseract (Marvel), Thor (2011) - Freeform, WinterIron Reverse Bang 2019, canon is a box of scraps, with elements from:
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-30
Updated: 2019-08-30
Packaged: 2020-09-30 14:59:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 9,761
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20448995
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thudworm/pseuds/thudworm
Summary: In Norse mythology, a fylgja (plural fylgjur) is a supernatural being or spirit which accompanies a person in connection to their fate or fortune.Or,Shoulder angels and demons are rare- they exist to work with those who have an important choice to make, one which will have an impact on many people.Also a fill for the Tony Stark Bingo, square K4- AU: Angels & Demons.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Wing Support](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20448026) by [Riverlander974](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Riverlander974/pseuds/Riverlander974). 

> I'm excited to finally be posting this fic! 
> 
> When all the art for the Bang was originally posted I told myself I wasn't going to participate because I had too many other demands on my time, but if I did this would be the art I chose. So when it was still unclaimed a few days later, I took it as a sign, and here we are almost 10k words later. 
> 
> With many thanks to Riverlander974 for creating such a wonderful piece of artwork that I couldn't not write for it, embedded in chapter 2.

_ 1993 _

The first thing Tony noticed as he appeared on his new charge’s left shoulder was how unbearably young she was. 

The typical age for a person to be assigned guidance was when they were in their late teens or early twenties. The youngest Tony had ever heard of was 12, the news had spread all through the community, because of how unusual it was for someone so young to already be in need of the help their kind provided. 

But Tony would eat his tail if this girl was older than 10. His best guess for her age was 8, which was, quite frankly, unthinkable. Either whoever (or whatever) controlled the assignment had made a massive mistake, or this  _ child _ was going to be put through hell far, far too young; not that there was ever a good age.

“Hello,” he called over to the right, but there was no reply. Which was to be expected- it was considered taboo for an angel and a demon to talk to each other, instead of only speaking to their assigned human when necessary, but Tony had never been one to follow the rules. 

Several years later there was still no sign of anyone to be the other half of the balancing act of guidance, not even a small nudge to go left instead of right. The two explanations Tony could see each seemed as unlikely as the other. An error had to have happened and either he had been sent somewhere he wasn’t needed, or the angel who was meant to be here was missing in action. Tony had been becoming more and more certain that it was his presence that was the error, until training began.

Tony had a lot of time to think (often talking out loud to himself), especially during the night since, like all demons, he didn’t need sleep. The prospect of being reassigned away from Natasha had been a bittersweet one; he had already grown fond of his little charge, but Destiny rarely had a happy ending in store for those Chosen few. 

Now, after Tony had seen just what was in store for Natasha, he would have done anything to spare her. 

They called it ‘training’, but in Tony’s opinion ‘torture’ would have been a much more accurate description. 

Natasha was one of a group of 24 girls taken for the Red Room program, training them to be spies and assassins operating under the code name Black Widow. The program so far for the girls in Natasha’s age group was focused mostly on physical conditioning, similar to what was expected of promising young athletes or performers. Like ballet dancers. 

But Tony had been on high alert since he arrived, listening for subtle rumours, whispered comments, and what  _ wasn’t _ said aloud. 

What little he had been able to glean horrified him. Not only were they going to be trained to fight, and kill, but also to ‘extract information from unwilling sources.’ Which was a polite way of saying torturing people for information. And it was going to be Tony’s job to help her do it without a second thought. Because anything less would mean her death, which was not an acceptable trade. He was here for a reason- to make sure she survived, no matter what. 

\---

_ 1998 _

“They’ve trained you hard, and you’ve succeeded till now. Use it- look for an escape. Be alert constantly. It won’t be easy, but you can do it.”

Tony almost fell off his perch on Natasha’s shoulder. That sounded like it came from her right shoulder, where an angel would be if there was one. But there couldn’t be- it had been years without a peep, so why now?

“So nice to finally hear from you,” Tony said. “Have you been asleep for the past five years?”

There was a long silence, long enough that Tony figured he might as well have been talking to a brick wall for all the response he never got. 

“What has there been for me to say? We both know how this goes, in the end there’s a choice to be made, and until then you keeping her as safe as she can be is all there is.”

“Doesn’t feel like I’m doing a great job of it, to be honest.” Tony sighed. Every other day there was a new bruise or sprain, or a deep cut when knife training. There had been more than a couple of broken bones during the past few years, plus a concussion. What really boiled Tony’s blood, though, was the lack of any medical care beyond the absolute minimum. Every trainee Black Widow was expected to patch herself up, because when they were sent out on a mission they would be expected to be totally self sufficient.

They fell into something of a rhythm after that. Tony would throw out comments and observations, and occasionally he would get a reply. It was never much of a conversation, but Tony slowly learned a few things about the angel, including that his name was Bucky. 

The passage of time seemed to be both fast as hell and dragging on for an age. He alternated between wishing training to be over and done with, Natasha graduated to work as a Black Widow; or dreading the day that happened, when she would be thrust into the shadowy world of spies and assassins, dealing with ( _ becoming _ ) the worst of the worst humanity had to offer. 

Today he was leaning to the former. They had been working on knife skills earlier, and one of the others had taken offence when Natasha had been praised for her grip, and she had retaliated by deliberately slashing her with the knife, leaving Natasha with a large gash up her arm. 

It was difficult to sit there and listen to Natasha stifle her sobs to avoid attracting notice, especially when there was nothing he could do to help, other than repeat to her that she had made it this far, so she was definitely strong enough to survive this.

Having been ‘sloppy’ enough to be injured was sometimes grounds for punishment if the wrong instructor became aware, but asking for painkillers was seen as a far worse sign of weakness. At least one other girl had been failed out of the program for much the same. 

Natasha eventually fell into a restless sleep, and Tony heaved a sigh of relief. “Fuck, I hate this,” he muttered to himself. 

“It’s hard when you get attached to them, isn’t it?” 

On any other day Tony would have been pleased to hear from Bucky, but today he was just not in the mood for a lecture. ‘Don’t get attached’ was rule number one on the list of the do's and don'ts for their kind, which was always easier said than done. 

“So what if I am,” he shot back. “Don’t tell me you feel nothing for her at all.”

“I’m not attached, and I’m not going to be. Not after last time.” 

Tony wasn’t convinced, but he still made a small noise of encouragement. He wanted to hear about this ‘last time.’

“I got attached. I was with my last human for about 10 years, through all sorts of shit including a war. Not that he had much need for me, actually I think I spent more time backing up his demon trying to keep him alive than I did doing my own job.” 

Tony could hear the fondness in Bucky’s voice, underneath the sadness, and it didn’t take a genius to guess the inevitable ending.

“Let me tell you, that man had the self preservation instincts of a lemming, constantly charging in head first when he saw a wrong to be righted. And… In the end his one big choice was to sacrifice himself to save millions.”

“So now you’re trying not to get attached again?” Tony asked.

“Yeah,” Bucky replied softly.

“Let me know how that goes for you,” Tony said. There was no response to that, but Tony hadn’t expected one anyway. 

—-

_ 2001 _

If Tony had been able to throw up he would be right now. 

Today had been a test. A test to see if Natasha had what it took to succeed in her role as a Black Widow, or if her training had been a waste. There would have been no second chances or mercy for failure, so Tony had done the only thing he could.

When they put a gun in her hand and told her to shoot the man bound to a chair, a hood over his head, Tony told her to do it. 

And she did. No hesitation. 

The man had probably had been a political dissident, possibly a foreign spy, but it didn’t really matter. Whatever he might have done, he didn’t deserve to die like that- terrified and begging for his life. 

Now, though, the only thing that stood between Natasha and the prospect of freedom was the graduation ceremony. 

“Why do you do it?” Bucky asked, later that evening. It was the first time Bucky had spoken to him directly without Tony initiating the conversation. On any other day Tony would have been pleased, but today? Today had been a particularly shitty day. 

“Why the fuck do you think? Because if I didn’t she’d be dead by now. Same as all the other shitty things I’ve had to tell her, and my past humans, to do.” Tony was in no mood to be polite about it. 

“I wasn’t trying to criticise, I just meant why keep taking assignments, do the job at all. It can’t be easy to feel responsible for all the terrible things that need to happen.”

“Oh.” Tony had never had anyone ask him that before. Amongst their kind it was known that Angels were there to advocate for the greater good, while Demons were focused on self-preservation for their humans. 

There was a human saying Tony had heard once that he was fond of because it summed up his motivation as a Demon quite nicely, and he used it to explain himself to Bucky.

“You can’t keep setting yourself on fire to keep everybody else warm.” He was there to be a reminder of that. 

—-

_ 2007 _

Four years ago Natasha had taken the risk when a chance to escape presented itself, and she had never looked back. In that time she had made something of a name for herself. She had a reputation for success, and for never turning down a job for the right price, no matter how distasteful others in the business might have found it. 

But that was still an improvement over how her life would have been if she were still under the control of the Red Room. Because her choices were her own. Freedom was worth anything. But Tony could tell some of her jobs were taking a toll on her, and he had started pushing her to be more discerning now her reputation was established. 

Moving in the shadowy circles she did, it was inevitable that sooner or later she would attract the wrong sort of attention- not from competitors, or even those from her past, but from various law enforcement agencies. 

She had first noticed the agent on her tail 3 days ago. Since she was currently between jobs there was no harm in letting the man watch her to his heart's content. She would let him think he had gotten one over on her, lull him into a false sense of security, before using him for information. She needed to know who he was working for, and how they were tracking her. Plus, it was amusing to let her enemies think they were getting the drop on her, before demonstrating just how wrong they were. 

The situation came to a head a week later. Natasha was sitting at a cafe in Budapest, pretending to be a tourist while watching her latest target, a Serbian diplomat, when the agent who had been following her dropped himself into the chair next to her. 

“He’s got balls, I’ll give him that,” Tony said, and he heard it as Bucky tried to stifle a snort of laughter. 

Natasha didn’t say a word, just stared at the man and waited for him to explain just what the hell he thought he was doing. 

“Hi,” he said. “I’m Clint, better known as Hawkeye.” There was a beat of silence before he continued. “Normally this would be the part where you tell me your name.”

Natasha just continued staring at him, and waited for him to get to the point. 

“No? That’s alright, I know who you are anyway, Natasha Romanoff. Or is it Tatiana Sokolova? Or Natalie Rushman? Or Irina Zlataryova?”

“You seem to know a lot about me, Hawkeye. But what you don’t seem to be aware of is just how easy it would be for me to kill you, and vanish before your Agency had a hope in hell of catching me.” 

“That’s where you’re wrong,” Hawkeye replied with a shiteating grin. “I don’t doubt that you  _ could _ , but I don’t think you  _ would _ .” 

“Oh?” 

“When I was given this assignment, I looked through all the records we had on you, which was not much- you cover your tracks well. But I noticed something. You've been a lot more discerning in the jobs you take recently. And I think there’s a reason for that. 

“My bosses sent me to take you out, but I’m gonna piss them off by offering you a choice, because something tells me it’s the right thing to do. Let me bring you in, not as a prisoner, as a new recruit. I promise you’ll be given a fair chance to turn over a new leaf.”

“You still haven’t told me who it is you’re working for, who I’m supposed to be trusting on your word.” 

“Oh,” he said with a sheepish grin. It seems like the first genuine expression from the man. “I’m with SHIELD.” 

Tony had heard of SHIELD, and it seems like Bucky had too, judging by his indrawn breath. “Do it,” he urged. “You need to take the chance and and join him.”

‘Okay,’ Tony thought to himself. That was probably angel knowledge, taking them all another step closer to the inevitable choice to be made. 

“Okay,” Natasha said. 


	2. Chapter 2

_ 2011 _

Clint walked into Natasha’s quarters, without knocking, and flopped face first onto her bed with a drawn out groan. 

Natasha was sitting at the desk, reviewing old intelligence briefings and mission reports, looking for inconsistencies. Without turning to look at him, she said “yes Clint, you can come in and sit on my bed, thank you for asking.” 

Tony had to stifle a laugh, and he could hear Bucky doing the same. 

“I don’t want to go to New Mexico,” Clint whined, with his face still buried in her pillow, which made it nearly impossible to understand. 

“Why are they assigning you out there? It’s the middle of nowhere.” 

“Exactly! I should be here on the helicarrier, ready to get sent halfway around the world at a moments notice.” Clint had rolled over onto his back now, splayed out like a starfish. 

“Except you hate it when you get sent, on a moments notice, halfway around the world.” 

Clint whined again. “Get out of here with your logic. You’re supposed to listen to me complain, and comfort me.” 

“There, there,” she replied dryly. 

“Go with him.” Bucky was insistent in the way Tony had come to recognise in angels when they were following their sense of when and how to guide.

“I’ll talk to Sitwell, and see if I can get myself assigned along with you. Who knows, maybe then I can find out what’s going on within SHIELD.”

“Still nothing, huh?” Clint asked. 

“No, and I don’t like it. I keep finding references to something called ‘Project Insight,’ but never any details about what that is. If it was something inconsequential I would have figured it out by now. But whatever is happening below the surface here is bad enough to have had a lot of effort put in to hiding it, by at least a few high level people. And I mean,  _ really _ high level.”

“You know you can trust me at least,” Clint said. “Whatever it is, we’ll figure it out together.”

“Exactly, and I can’t help but wonder if you being assigned there is part of it, split us up so we can’t work together.”

“No time like the present,” Tony commented, and Natasha shooed Clint out of her quarters and went to find Sitwell. 

Tony hated Sitwell. Something about the man really ruffled his feathers, and Tony had been doing his job for long enough to know when to trust his instincts. So, it was with more than a little bit of joy that he watched Natasha steamroll over any and all objections the handler tried to prevent her from joining Clint in New Mexico. 

Eventually he was forced to concede there was no stopping Natasha and, with a scowl on his face, he added her to the list for transport to the New Mexico base. 

—-

Not only was the New Mexico base, nicknamed ‘the real Area 51’ by half of the agents in SHIELD, in the middle of nowhere, there was an even more remote satellite base in the middle of the desert, which was where Clint had been assigned. The briefing Clint was given, and Natasha listened in on, as they were driven out was light on details, only mentioning a mystery object that had fallen from the sky. Clint was to be added to the guard duty rotation, while the scientists did their thing.

Whatever the object was, something in the air had Tony’s hair standing on end.

The satellite base was composed of isolation tents surrounding the object and the scientific equipment, with trailers set up as accommodation and control centres. 

Only Clint had been assigned a trailer; leaving Natasha to fend for herself was probably Sitwell’s way of getting back at her under the guise of lack of space for her. Not that it mattered, she and Clint had been forced to share much more cramped quarters on missions in the past, this was nothing. 

Nothing interesting happened until their third day on base. 

“You’ll never guess what I heard today,” Clint announced as he entered the trailer. 

“Then just tell me, there’s no point wasting both of our times with guessing games.” 

“Captain America was found by SHIELD, and he’s at the real Area 51 base.”

“And you believe whichever junior agent you overheard trying to impress the other juniors? Do I need to drag you to medical?”

“Why? Do you think that’s where they’ve stashed him?”

“No, because you’ve either hit your head one too many times crawling around the rafters, or the desert sun has gotten to you.”

“C’mon, Nat. If it was just one baby agent I would have brought it up. The rumour mill is in overdrive, even though no one really seems to know anything. I know it sounds crazy, but it makes sense. The base is at more than double staffed, and that was before whatever the hell it was that crashed out here turned up. You said it yourself- there’s something odd going on within SHIELD, and I think this is part of it.” 

“Find him. If they really have him you have to find him.” Bucky was suddenly very insistent, his voice strained like Tony had never heard him sound before. 

“Okay, but why would they drag his body all the way to the middle of the desert?”

“Because it’s the middle of the desert?” Clint said with a shrug. “There’s nothing around for miles, which means no random civilian is gonna see something they shouldn’t.” 

That was a fair point, and Nat said as much. 

“Okay, I’ll head back to the main base and check it out.”

Clint sighed dramatically. “And I’ll stay here, on guard duty even though there’s nothing interesting about the stupid artefact. There’s meant to be a massive storm rolling in tonight, and I’m not even gonna get a decent hot shower after.”

—-

Sitwell hadn’t been happy when she left for the satellite base, and now he was clearly pissed off she had returned to the main base, but he didn’t have the courage to say anything about it to her face. 

There were quite a few restricted access places Natasha would be able to access with a combination of pretending she had every right to be there, staring down junior agents who were terrified of her, or by taking a page from Clint’s book and crawling through vents. If it wasn’t so advantageous to her right now she would be bringing it all the way up the chain of command, because the lack of security on a top secret base was quite frankly embarrassing for SHIELD. 

One particularly egregious example was how she found exactly what she had been searching for just by asking questions of the scientists investigating a glowing blue cube. They were all more than happy to take her at her word that she was there on behalf of Fury for a status update. 

Apparently it was called a tesseract, and had all sorts of potential for energy generation, weapons development, and unlocking the secrets of the universe itself; but Tony didn’t really care. He did not like that cube at all. It was making him feel sick to his stomach, an experience he had never had before and did not want to repeat. 

Not only did she hear all about how the tesseract worked, but also where it was found, and with  _ who _ . Apparently Clint’s rumour had been correct- Captain America had indeed been found alive by SHIELD, and was somewhere here on the base. Now she just had to find him. 

The med-bay was the obvious first place to search, but Natasha wasn’t surprised that there was nothing to be found there. The base was designed to accommodate several hundred of agents, scientists, and support staff, which left a lot of ground to cover. 

She was methodically making her way through the list of SHIELD staff assigned to which quarters, looking for a discrepancy, when she overheard gossip about Clint having turned up at the base unexpectedly, with someone new in tow. 

It didn’t take long to locate Clint, for all his skill as a sniper under mission conditions, he was terrible at being subtle at any other time. The man with Clint was tall, blond, and built like a brick wall. And something about him had Tony’s hair standing on end again, the same as it had when they were at the satellite base. 

“Hey Nat,” he called as she entered the briefing room he had claimed. “This is Thor. He turned up out of nowhere and beat the shot out of Rumlow and his team. He also claims he is  _ that _ Thor, Norse god of thunder, and stuff.”

Rumlow and his team were a bunch of dicks, and Tony was pleased to hear they had finally gotten what was coming to them. For some reason, their handlers always let them get away with anything short of murder. 

“Well met, Lady Natasha. It is an honour to meet a second person with fylgjur in the short time I have been in this Realm.” 

“What the hell isfylgjur?” Tony wondered out loud as Natasha asked the same question, but before Thor had a chance to answer the door burst open. It hadn’t been locked, but given the force the man used to open it, a lock wouldn’t have had any effect. 

There was a moment of silence as everyone stared at the newcomer, until Tony heard a noise from Bucky that sounded suspiciously like he had fallen off of his place on Natasha’s other shoulder. 

The sudden boom of laughter took everyone by surprise, but it stood to reason the god of thunder would have a laugh that sounded like thunder. There had been nothing else to happen, though; Thor’s laughter didn’t make any sense. Unless…

While everyone else was exchanging confused looks at Thor’s amusement, Tony asked “do you think he can see us?” 

His question had been directed at Bucky, but it was Thor who replied in the affirmative. “Of course I see you. Is it unusual for your kind to be seen? It has been many centuries since I last visited this realm, but have things truly changed so much?” 

“What… What is going on here?” The newcomer was still standing in the doorway, listening in on the conversation. 

“We could ask the same of you,” Clint said instead of giving the question a straight answer. “I know just about all of the personnel on this base, but I don’t know you. Who are you?”

Bucky was muttering to himself and sounded very shell shocked as he kept repeating “that’s Steve. How is that Steve?”

“Would I be correct in suggesting your name is Steve?” Thor asked, which had everyone turning back to him, baffled. Tony was impressed. If there had been any reason to think this guy was bullshitting, this was enough to prove he was who he claimed to be. 

“How did you know my name? I am Steve. Steve Rogers, sometimes better known as Captain America.” 

That was when it clicked into place for Tony. Bucky’s previous human, the one who had sacrificed himself to save millions, had been Captain America, and was somehow still alive. 

“I am pleased to meet you! I am Thor. I knew your name because one of the fylgjur was saying it when you entered the room. I believe he may have worked with you previously?” It was phrased as a question, and Tony had to assume Bucky had just nodded rather than answering out loud, because Thor seemed satisfied. 

“One thing at a time. My name is Natasha, and he’s Clint. Captain, well get to your story in a minute. First, I want to know about whatever these… fylgjur you keep mentioning are,” she said to Thor. 

“Fylgja is the word in Asgardian for them, but I am unsure of what an accurate translation of the term would be.”

“The best I can think of is that we’re like an angel and a demon on her shoulder. It’s not really an accurate comparison, but it’ll do,” Bucky suggested and Thor relayed. 

“So one telling me to good and the other evil?” Natasha asked. 

Tony huffed and crossed his arms over his chest, tail flicking angrily.

“That would not be an accurate description of his role. I believe that might even be an offensive conclusion to draw.” 

Tony was not used to being seen; it was going to take some getting used to, especially when it came to controlling his physical reactions. Although… If Thor could see them, then he could describe them. Tony made a mental note to ask Thor to describe Bucky to him later, he was very curious to know what he looked like. 

“Well, what  _ do _ they do, then?” Clint asked. 

“Tell her I’m the reason she survived her time in the Red Room,” Tony said. 

“How? Or why?” Natasha demanded. 

It was irritating that the first time he was trying to directly communicate with a human of his that it had to be done through an intermediary, but there wasn’t any other option. Through Thor, he explained his role as a self-preservation instinct before all else. 

Thor also translated as Bucky explained how he just had a sense, some innate knowledge, of the answer to a question he didn’t understand. Neither of them knew the future or what the consequences of their choices would be- in the end they just had to trust they were doing the right thing

“You said they were like that cartoon thing, an angel and demon on her shoulder. Is that what they look like? Like, tiny people just sitting there? Wings, halo, horns, all that?” Clint asked. 

“They do have wings, but they are not capable of flight. For the demon, there are no horns, but his ears are rather more pointed than a human’s. He does have a tail. His beard is not as impressive as mine.” 

“Excuse you!” Tony was offended at that, which Bucky found hilarious. 

“The angel’s left arm appears to be made of metal, which is unique to my knowledge. He has hair of a similar length to mine, and he is using his halo to keep his hair from his face.” 

Now it was Tony’s turns to laugh at Bucky. 

“This is so cool,” Clint exclaimed. 

“If they’ve been there, giving me advice for years, why have I never heard them?” Natasha asked. 

“I can give you no explanation for why these things work the way they do. There are very few in all of the realms who understand these mysteries. I have found it best to simply accept that these things are as they are. Centuries ago, I had the chance to hear firsthand from a man who had fylgjur. As it was explained to me, the suggestions the fylgur provide blend into normal thoughts, the decisions they prompt seem like your own.”

“Centuries ago? No one more recent?” 

“The fylgjur are exceedingly rare. If I were to count the number of people with fylgjur I have encountered on my fingers I would not have needed a second hand before today. As I said, they exist to provide advice, but it is only those who are destined at some point in their lives to make an important choice with far reaching impact.”

“No pressure there, hey Nat,” Clint said with a laugh. 

“But you said I was the second you’d met since you’ve shown up here. Who was the first?” Natasha asked, ignoring Clint. 

“The Hawk-eyed archer, of course. However, only his angel remains, the demon departed several years ago when their task was completed,” Thor replied. 

“Wait! So I’ve got these guide thingies too, but only one of them?” Clint asked.

“Yes. He has told me his name is Coulson. He says that he chose to remain after you were successful at recruiting the Black Widow because he believed you needed all the help you could get to keep yourself alive and in one piece.”

Natasha laughed. “He’s got you there, you definitely can’t be left unsupervised.” 

“What if… Nat, what if this important choice has something to do with SHIELD? If me bringing you in from the cold to join SHIELD was, y’know, an ‘important choice with far reaching impact,’ that has to mean something, right? Maybe whatever the mystery is you’ve been trying to unravel.”

“Clint you’re a genius!” Natasha shouted. 

“What’s going on within SHIELD?” 

Tony had almost forgotten about the other human, and judging by the reactions of the others, they had too. 

“We don’t trust certain elements within SHIELD, and we don’t know who is included in those elements. I’ve been searching for you, Captain, without much luck,” Natasha said. Care to explain just what you’ve been doing, and how we can know we can trust you?”

“All I know is what they told me. When I was found, I didn’t exactly take the news that it’s been 70 years too well. After I broke out, they brought me here. Said I’d been brought to a top-secret base for my own safety while I was ‘readjusting’, but I kinda got the sense it was more about keeping things safe  _ from _ me, rather than  _ for _ me,” Steve said with a wry grin. 

Tony was beginning to like this guy. Bucky clearly would vouch for him too, which meant Tony was happy to include him in their investigation conspiracy. 

“We can trust him,” Tony suggested to Natasha, and she nodded at Steve.

“I’ve been noticing odd things around SHIELD lately,” she explained. “Mission reports that don’t match what actually happened, agents on the same assignment being given different parameters, information that should be mundane being classified as top secret, the list goes on. And apart from Clint I have no idea who I can trust, because some of this seems like it goes right to the top.” 

“And you think these fylgjur Thor was talking about can help you figure that out,” Steve surmised. 

“That’s the plan,” Clint said. 

“You’re the only one here who knows how this works, and can hear them,” Natasha said to Thor. “How’s this going to work?” 

“I have never attempted to gain knowledge in such a fashion, so I do not know if it will be successful. But perhaps if we simply develop a plan, and see what, if anything, the fylgjur have to say on the matter.”


	3. Chapter 3

It was almost like cheating, Tony thought to himself later, as Natasha and Steve hitched a ride on the flight to DC. Clint’s idea to use Bucky’s sense of guidance to evaluate the different strategies they had come up with had worked surprisingly well. 

Through trial and error the mission plan settled on was for them to split into two teams, divide and conquer. Thor and Clint were remaining at the real Area 51 base in New Mexico, and Natasha was taking Steve to the Triskelion in DC. 

Of course, part of Tony’s appreciation of the plan came from when Natasha contacted Sitwell via video link to inform him she was returning from New Mexico, and Steve was coming with her to Washington. 

Steve had expressed concern about Sitwell or one of the other handlers objecting when they discussed that part of the plan, but Natasha had just demonstrated her predatory smile. That smile had been known to make grown men piss their pants in fear. “I never said that I was going to  _ ask _ Sitwell.” 

They arrived in DC later that evening, after most of the support staff they would need to talk to had left, so Natasha brought Steve to one of the safehouses she and Clint maintained in the area. 

“So how is this going to work when we get in there?” Steve asked as he looked through the floor plans and department listings of SHIELD’s headquarters. 

“That depends,” Natasha replied. “Is the ‘Star Spangled Man with a Plan’ willing to walk into the lion's den virtually unprepared?”

Steve sighed and muttered to himself, “there goes my hope of that being forgotten in the future,” which Tony had a hard time hearing over Bucky roaring with laughter. 

“That was just for the USO stuff and the propaganda reels. More often than not the Howlies and I dove in head first without a plan, and any plan we did have usually went out the window after about 5 minutes.”

“Good. Because I think the same thing is going to happen here. Any plan we come up with will have to be adapted if I get any sort of information from the fylgjur. It will help that you’re Captain America- people will be tripping over themselves to be the one to help you, which means they won’t stop to think about whether they  _ should _ be helping you.”

“You think I should play up the recently defrosted angle,” Steve said. “Pretend that I don’t understand so they keep telling me more.”

“Yes, exactly. Any opening of restricted files on the computer will just be because you don’t understand all this newfangled technology stuff, whereas if I did it? It would send up all sorts of alerts and red flags to whoever has been trying to keep me in the dark.”

There wasn’t much they could plan for when they were inside, so Natasha just ran Steve through what to keep a sharp eye out for, especially whatever Project Insight was. 

“Something I’ve been meaning to ask,” Steve said, after all possibilities had been discussed. “What’s the name of the base we were at when I found you? I thought it was just called the ‘New Mexico SHIELD Base,’ but I kept overhearing people talking about it as the ‘Real Area 51.’”

“There’s an Air Force base in the Nevada desert commonly known as Area 51. There are a lot of conspiracy theories about it, because of the Top Secret nature of the base, and the experimental aircraft and weapons development that go on there. People think alien spacecraft have been seen there, but they haven’t. If aliens ever were found, the SHIELD base is where they’d be taken, hence the ‘Real Area 51’ joke amongst SHIELD agents.” 

“Huh,” was all Steve had to say in response, which Tony couldn’t really blame him for. After winding up 70 years in the future, there probably wasn’t much left that could shock him, not even the possibility of aliens being real.

\---

It was early morning when they arrived at the Triskelion, which meant they were able to blend in amongst the flow of agents turning up to work for the day. 

“Last chance to back out,” Natasha offered, but Steve shook his head. 

“I never could ignore a situation if I saw it going south, and I get the feeling this is gonna be one of those times,” he replied. 

“All right then.” 

Natasha led the way to the Information Analysis Department, which was on the 23rd floor. 

They were alone in the elevator when Steve idly commented on how the view of the city had changed since he’d last been in DC. 

“How are we going to get into the information we need without showing our hand?” Steve asked. 

Natasha held up a keycard, one which stated it was issued to an Agent Joshua Byers, Senior Threat Analyst, Europe Division. “Agent Byers needs to be more careful with his belongings. If I’d wanted to I could have grabbed his phone and car keys too, but if they were missing he’d notice sooner and raise the alarm.”

“How-When did you manage to take that?”

“Pickpocketing is a very useful skill. He was waiting for an elevator going down, so when I brushed past him to press the button it wasn’t hard to reach into his pocket.”

Natasha logged into the system and began to poke around. “Let’s see what you’ve been up to lately Agent Byers,” she mumbled to herself. 

“Is that’s what we’re looking for?” Steve asked and pointed at the screen where there was a reference to Project Insight buried in among the regular files Agent Byers had access to. 

But, before Natasha could get around the password requirement, there was a knock on the door, and they both whirled around, Natasha barely resisting the urge to draw her gun. It was a junior agent standing there, and she looked like there was nowhere in the world she wanted to be less than here.

“Captain Ameri- Rogers- Sir,” the junior agent stammered. “Director Pierce has asked to see you in his office. He said it was urgent?” 

The agent was clearly nervous, but the question was whether it was because she was face to face with a legend, or because being summoned by Pierce was not good news for anyone. 

Steve was clearly as unhappy as Natasha at the idea of splitting up so soon, but ignoring the Secretary of the World Security Council was not an option. The question was, were they being split up so Steve was on his own, or so that Natasha was?

“Go. We'll meet back at the cafeteria at 10:30.” 

Steve gave her a small nod to show he understood, and followed the agent to the elevators. 

If Steve wasn’t back after the hour she had given, then the vague plan they had started with would be going out the window in favour of going in guns blazing, possibly literally. 

There was no point in trying to be subtle anymore, so Natasha stopped bothering with the password and started brute forcing her way through the layers of protection. She hadn’t gotten very far when the sound of an argument caught her attention. 

Natasha cracked the door open to see Steve standing there, trying to convince the same junior agent from before to let him through. It would have been trivial for him to push past her, but his greater strength risked injuring her, something they were both reluctant to do unless they were sure she was an enemy. 

“Leave.” Natasha’s tone brooked no argument, and, though the agent was clearly unhappy about it, she did.

“You’re back sooner than I expected,” Natasha said to Steve after pulling him back into the office and closing the door. 

“Turns out Pierce didn’t have a lot to say that I was interested in hearing. He wasn’t too impressed with that, which is probably why I ran into some trouble in the elevator on the way back down.”

“The sort of trouble we need to be prepared for when we go out that door?” Natasha asked

“That depends on whether or not anyone’s realised I escaped,” was not the answer Natasha was hoping for, but she could work with it. 

At first it seemed like they were in luck as they crept out of the office, but the blare of alarms and flashing of warning lights proved that wrong. 

“Stairs, that way,” Natasha pointed. 

They only managed to make it up four flights of stairs before trouble found them. Steve was impressive with his skills in close quarters combat, able to move with speed and grace more typical to a smaller frame than his solid build. It was the first time Natasha and Tony had seen him in action, but Bucky found it mundane. “You should see what he can do with that shield when he’s got room to work with it.” 

They encountered another two sets of agents before they made it to the top floor, but fortunately they were just as easily dealt with as the first bunch. On the negative side, though, it meant any hope of a stealthy entrance was well and truly dead. 

The door leading from the stairwell surprisingly unlocked and unguarded; and they were on high alert the entire way to Pierce’s office, expecting an ambush. 

There were agents waiting for them, but before Natasha or Steve had a chance to react, there was an order to “stand down!” But it was directed at the other agents. 

The one standing at the front raised a hand to his comm piece. “The boss says he wants to talk to you,” he sneered at them as the other agents reluctantly shifted away from the door to let them enter. 

“I’ve been expecting you, Agent Romanoff. Would you like to have a seat?” Pierce was acting like this was just any other meeting, but Natasha wasn’t going to play along. She remained standing, hand on her gun, ready to use it at the slightest provocation. 

“I was hoping we could have a chance to talk, first. If you’ll hear me out, maybe you’ll realise things will be much better for everyone if Project Insight is implemented.”

“Are you going to explain to us what Project Insight is?”

“Of course,” Pierce said, still smiling like this wasn’t going to end in death, one way or the other. 

“You’ve seen some of the worst of what humanity has to offer, haven’t you Agent Romanoff? Like Sao Paolo. Manila. Khartoum. Budapest. But what if you were able to preempt them, stop them before they have a chance to cause such harm? Would you take that chance to make the world a better place?”

“Not if stopping them meant murder,” Steve answered instead. 

“Trading freedom for security is nothing new, Captain. It’s becoming more and more necessary in order to keep humanity safe, even from itself. Especially from itself. Which is why Hydra will always win- we are the only ones with the courage to do what is needed, no matter how distasteful others may find it.” 

Given what Tony knew of the story of Captain America, he would have expected Steve to be the one to react negatively to hearing Pierce casually revealing Hydra were still a threat, but it was Bucky. The creative swearing and insults he was using were like nothing Tony had ever heard before. Tony had never heard one of their kind lose control like that before. He was too busy being shocked by Bucky’s diatribe to notice what Steve was doing until after it was done. He’d somehow gotten close enough to Pierce to take hold of his arm and grab the gun he’d been reaching for first. Now Pierce’s own gun was being pointed at his head, but he still didn’t seem concerned.

“I’m trusting you to keep them off my back, here,” Natasha said to Steve as she edged her way over the console. “Any of these assholes so much as twitch in my direction- you shoot him.” 

The Hydra Agents were all clearly furious at the turn of events, but they were also familiar enough with the Black Widow’s reputation to know better than to risk their boss’ life by calling her bluff. Not that she was bluffing. 

Taking advantage of the standoff, Natasha resumed her attempts to access the Project Insight files without any success. It didn’t matter what she tried, there was no getting through the layers upon layers of encryption and other protection. She tried every method and trick she knew, but eventually had to admit defeat.

“I can’t get in.” Natasha resisted the urge to smash the keyboard with a fist, but it was close. No matter what she tried, she wasn’t able to bypass the encryption. 

There was a commotion at the door to Pierce’s office, and two people entered.

“Sorry I’m late, someone tried to have me killed on the way over here.” 

Natasha whirled around and pointed her gun at Fury, although it seemed like she wasn’t the first to have pulled a gun on him recently. He was leaning heavily against Maria Hill for support, and blood was seeping past his hands where they were holding his gut.

“How do I know I can trust you?” Natasha asked, not letting her aim waver for a second. 

“Because you don’t have any other option,” was all Fury had to say in his own defense. “The encryption those files are locked behind requires two Clearnace Level Alpha users to decrypt.”

“You can. You have trust him,” Bucky urged, and Natasha lowered her gun. 

Hill helped Fury limp his way over to the console where Natasha had been trying to break in. 

Pierce chuckled. “Do you really think I left your access code active in the system after I ordered the hit on you? I know you Fury, we spent a lot of time in the field together. I know just how damn hard to kill you are.” 

Pierce sounded smug, but when Fury removed his eyepatch and the system accepted the retina scan from his usually hidden eye the smile finally dropped from his face.

“Move,” Steve commanded and Pierce did, looking noticeably less sure of things going his way after all. 

Pierce reluctantly cooperated with Steve and provided his own retinal scan. The computer beeped its acceptance and brought up all of the information available on Project Insight. It was inconceivable, as Natasha scrolled through the data revealing more and more of their plan, that Hydra had managed to develop all of this right under the noses of the world’s intelligence agencies. 

“What do we do with this?” Natasha asked. “There’s more than just Insight here, it’s all of Hydra’s dealings for decades. 

“Make it public. The world needs to know who’s been pulling their strings,” Steve said. 

“But if we do that it’s more than just Hydra’s secrets that will be exposed,” Natasha pointed out. “Everything of SHIELD’s will be out in the open too.”

“That cannot happen. Captain, the world has changed since you went under. SHIELD is needed. Sometimes it’s been a necessary evil, but it’s necessary all the same. If we do this, it would be gone for good. We can’t just shut it down and hope for the best. It won’t be easy work, but it’s possible to purge the bad elements and rebuild from there. But not if you burn it all down.” Fury said. 

“And risk the same thing happening all over again?” Steve challenged. “Hydra grew to this right under your nose. If we leave them any dark corners to scurry into they’ll take the chance to regroup and rebuild. I died to stop a Hydra plot to take over the world, 70 years ago. They’re clearly willing to play the long game, and if they’re left to their own devices again nothing will change.”

“Steve’s right,” Bucky said. “This is it. This is what has to happen.”

Natasha didn’t join the argument between Steve and Fury that kept going. Instead, she set about preparing to release the files herself. She held off on immediately hitting send, because as much as she preferred to ask for forgiveness rather than permission, it would be helpful in the shitstorm to come if everyone involved had been on the same page. 

Hill, who had been silently listening to the argument, finally spoke. “Sir, I agree with Captain Rogers. We can’t risk it.”

“I just hope you’re right about this,” Fury said, and he was the one to make the final click to release the files himself.

“Now, what do we do with him?” Hill asked and pointed at Pierce. 

Pierce had been dumped to sit on the floor with his necktie shoved into his mouth as a gag. When Natasha gave him a look, Steve just shrugged. “I didn’t want to listen to him talking about ‘the greater good’ or trying to justify it. Plus, in my time, Hydra agents were known for taking the easy way out with a cyanide tooth, and I didn’t want to risk him doing the same.”

Tony couldn’t fault that logic, and he was about to say so to Bucky when there was a knock on the window. The 41st floor window. 

It was Thor. Somehow he was in midair with Clint clinging to his side. Clint gave them a wave before they flew up, presumably to land on the roof. 

No one seemed to know what to say about what had just happened until there was the sound of a brief fight outside the door, and then it opened to reveal Thor and Clint looking windswept, surrounded by unconscious Hydra agents. 

“What are you doing here? How are you here?” 

“You remember that weird object I was guarding when Thor turned up? Turns out it was his hammer. Muh-, Mul-, Mil-, Mmmm…” 

“Mjolnir,” Thor corrected, with the patient air of someone who was used to people getting it wrong. 

“Yeah, that. It can fly. And Thor can fly when he’d holding it, so he grabbed me by the back of my gear, and away we went.”

“But why?”

“We thought maybe you could use the help, but it looks like we missed all the party fun.” Clint was far too cheerful for the situation. 

“I really don’t see how this is a party. You need to work on your definition of fun,” Natasha said flatly. “We don’t have long before someone in charge of something realises what’s been going on here and sends in the big guns, so you might as well tell me your story while we wait to surrender.”

“Well, after you two took off, things started getting weird at the base. Thor heard someone talking about the object that crash landed and figured it must be his, so he wanted to go get it. Sitwell was not happy about it, but there wasn’t much he could do to stop him. I went with him, and when we got back to the main base there had been a change in leadership.”

“The hidden traitors revealed their treachery. They were obviously aware of the potential power of the tesseract, and attempted to remove it from the base. But they were unsuccessful,” Thor said with a grin. 

“Then the coolest thing happened, Nat!” Clint could barely contain his excitement. Tony had been focused more on Thor until now, so when Tony looked at Clint properly for the first time since they’d shown up again he could barely believe what he was seeing. 

“Sitwell had the tesseract thing in a case when he tried to take off with it, and when I fought him over it, he dropped the case and it spilled loose. I grabbed it with my bare hands to toss it to Thor, and it’s some kinda magic, because now I can hear that fylgja Thor was telling us about before. His name is Coulson, apparently.” 

Not only could Clint now hear him, but apparently Tony could see him now, too. 

“Please tell me I’m not the only one who can see him,” he pleaded to Bucky. 

“Nope. If you’re losing the plot that means I am too.”

There was a lot more to that story than they had time for now, but Tony was going to make sure Natasha got it out of Clint in full, later. There were bigger things to worry about right now. Like the fallout of huge swathes of the world's leaders, military, and security organisations turning out to be Hydra. 

There was nothing Tony or Bucky could really do to help deal with the shitshow going on, which left them with nothing to do but talk. 

“I’ve been thinking,” Tony started with, which earned him a laugh from Bucky. 

“Always dangerous.”

Tony stuck his tongue out in Bucky’s direction, not that anyone could see, but that wasn’t the point. “Our job here is done now, isn’t it? Which means we both need to decide whether or not to stick around.”

“What are you planning?” Bucky asked, sidestepping answering first.

“I’m thinking of staying. It’s not often there's been a reason for me to want to. Have you done it before?”

“No, but I’m thinking this time might be different. I finally have a reason, too.”

Tony was more pleased to hear that than he was ever going to admit. 

—-

A month after Hydra’s continued existence was revealed things were finally starting to slow down. It had been many long days and nights of working with agencies like the FBI to track down and arrest, or otherwise neutralise, the agents who had infiltrated all levels of government and other organisation.

One small positive of the work had been Steve finding his shield, hidden in an out of the way storage facility that hadn’t really been used since the 70s. There had also been a massive ancient computer deep underground, but whatever purpose it had been used for was still a mystery. The magnetic tape reels were too degraded for the machine to function, but technicians working on it were hopeful they would be able to pull some data from it, and possibly understand how Hydra had developed the targeting algorithm they had planned to use. 

Now they had gathered together to debrief, in the safe house Natasha had been using as a home base for the past few weeks. 

“What should we do about the tesseract?” Natasha asked. “Most of the agents working with it turned out to be Hydra, which means they haven’t been the most forthcoming about it. Which is fortunate for us, because it’s remained off grid to the other agencies. But that will change eventually, and it’s probably best we don’t get found hiding it. Keeping it lying around my apartment until the FBI comes looking for it isn’t exactly secure either.” 

“I will take it to Asgard. There are many similar artifacts stored in the vault, it will be safest there. I only hope that Hydra’s meddling with things beyond their understanding won’t bring with it consequences your people are not prepared to face,” Thor said. 

“Well that’s ominous,” Tony commented. 

“Before you leave with it, I have a favour to ask, Thor,” Natasha said. 

“Anything, my friend,” Thor replied. 

The feeling that passed through him when Natasha touched the tesseract was indescribable, and Tony didn’t know if it was a good sensation or bad. Intense was probably the best way to think of it. 

“Did it work?” Bucky asked, and Natasha went stock-still. 

“I heard that! Say something else,” she demanded. 

“Hi, Natasha,” Tony said. “It’s good to finally be able to talk to you directly.”

“I wonder… Can you hear me?” Bucky asked, but there was no response from Natasha. “How about now?” 

“Now what?” Natasha asked, confused. Tony could hear the difference in how Bucky spoke, but he couldn’t define how it was different. 

As Bucky explained it to her, Tony tried it out for himself. Speaking so Natasha could hear was just like talking normally, but if he wanted only Bucky to hear him it took a similar vocal twist to providing guidance, but reversed. Like flexing a muscle instead of contracting it. 

Tony was so used to only hearing Bucky, not seeing him, that it took him catching sight of Coulson sitting on Clint’s shoulder to realise he would be able to see Bucky now too. 

It was nerve wracking, because being able to see his companion meant he could be seen in return.

“You’re hot as hell, and I would know,” Tony blurted out before he engaged his brain-mouth filter, but thankfully Bucky wasn’t offended. In fact, he was the opposite of offended.

“You’re not exactly hard on the eyes yourself,” he replied. 

Then Tony had another wild thought. “Are you able to come over to this side?”

It turned out that Bucky was able to, and Tony had to take a moment to remember how to think. Up close, Tony was able to see the beautiful storm-grey colours of Bucky’s eyes, and he could so easily get lost in them for hours. 

Bucky waving his hand right in Tony’s face was enough to snap him out of it and remind him why he asked Bucky to come over to his side. He reached out to take hold of Bucky’s hand, and it worked! Not only were they now visible to each other, they were corporeal.

“You know what this means, right?” Bucky asked, and Tony waited for him to explain. 

“It means I can finally do what I’ve been wanting to do for years,” Bucky said, and kissed Tony. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was a really fun exercise in world-building, very different from anything else I've written before. 
> 
> I'd definitely be open to more in this setting (potentially a sequel involving some of the characters who haven't appeared yet, or a prequel of Bucky's time working with Steve), so if there's interest let me know!


End file.
